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Thursday, April 30, 2015

Hey everyone! Today I'm joining my friend Veronica Zalis in the Light It Up Blue mini hop to celebrate the last day of Autism Awareness month. We wanted to hop one more time to remind everyone that Autism Awareness is important every day of the year!

We are being sponsored by Lawn Fawn, one commenter will get to pick out the Lawn Fawn stamp set of their choice. Veronica is also offering a $20 gift certificate to the stamp company of YOUR choice to one lucky winner. Be sure to visit all of the blogs playing along today to increase your chances of winning!

For my card today I used Lawn Fawn's Science of Love set and papers from Basic Grey's Capture 6x6 pad.Those cute little birds were stamped and colored with Copics and fussy cut. I stamped them again on the patterned paper panel just above the little 'platform' I created from another strip of paper. I added a bit of stitching for texture and then stamped the sentiments and hearts. Pretty simple and easy, for this one the patterned paper did a lot of the work for me.

That's all for me today. The full hop list is below. I encourage you to also visit Autismspeaks.org, and Autism Daddy for more information about autism and autism awareness.

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

I am thrilled to be participating in the Spring 2015 Essentials by Ellen Release Hop! I’ll be showcasing a few of the new stamp sets and dies In my post today!

And, I also get to give this new stamp set, called Amazing Women to a lucky someone! Please leave a comment to enter my giveaway!

You should have arrived from Catherine Pooler's blog, but the fun begins in the CLASSroom and there is also a Grand Giveaway! To enter, be sure to leave a comment there, and at every stop along the hop by May 5th! Winners will be announced May 8th.

I have three cards to share with you today. The first two feature the Wild Garden dies. These are my very favorite item from this release, so I was thrilled to be assigned the set to work with.

These dies are perfect for inlaying, and my first card is a little bit of a twist on the inlaid technique. I first painted some circles and leaf shapes on mixed media paper using Dylusions Ink sprays. I used two colors for each of the flowers/leaves. I really like mixed media paper as it's a very bright white, very smooth, and doesn't warp too much. Once that was dry the flowers and leaves were die cut. I also die cut the flowers/leaves from black cardstock.

Using the black outline pieces as a guide, the flower petals and the leaves were adhered to the card. I didn't actually adhere the outline, just used it to place the inner portions of the flowers.

Once all the inner portions of the die cuts were adhered, I added the black outlines. These were only adhered in the centers, and I used my fingers to kind of soften/curl the cardstock up to add dimension. I finished it off with a sentiment from the Mondo Magnolia set.

For my second card I first created a base of embossed leaves. I've got a quick little tutorial for you on this.

1) Die cut the leaf from a piece of vellum, using the negative cut as a stencil. Vellum works best because you can see through it and it helps with placement.

2) Using a sponge dauber and Versamark, lightly daub around the edge of the leaf and emboss.

3) Repeat as desired to create cluster/background.

The embossed leaves act as a great base for my die cuts, they fill out the space and add texture and depth.

The sentiment is from the Amazing Women set. The set is perfect for Mother's Day covering the gamut of ladies in your life, but I love the unique sentiments in the set. A few gold and black sequins finish off the card.

Finally, I just had to make something using very appropriately named Mondo Magnolia. It's a gorgeous, big, bold, bloom. There's a matching die, but I was in the mood to fussy cut. I tried to pick yellow papers that slowly graduated in color, getting darker towards the center of the flower. The outer two layers were each stamped/cut twice, and adhered offset to one another in order to create a fuller flower. I also used Copics to color the portions of the petals that curl up in the image.

While I stamped the outer layers of the flower with Memento, I wanted that center spray to really pop, so that was stamped with Versafine and then clear embossed.

For a bold splash/contrast, I added painted acrylic brushstrokes to the card base before adhering the flower. The sentiment, also from Amazing Women, was embossed in white, and a few silver sequins add some sparkle.

OK, that's all for me today. Your next stop is Heather Pulverenti, and I've got the entire hop list below for you too. There's a giveaway on each stop and so many good things to see, so be sure to make your way through, you won't be disappointed!

Friday, April 24, 2015

I got to do a little scrapping the other night. Nothing earth shattering here, but I thought I would share with you a little strategy for scrapping kids' art.

We're big Washington Capitals fans and the girls are in the Caps Kid's Club. They have contests each month, and Ellie entered and won the one for October. She needed to draw a picture of the Slapshot, the Capitals mascot, in a Halloween costume. The photos are of Ellie with and discovering her prize, an autographed Mike Green stick.

I thought about creating a double page layout for this one, but it really would have just been the once piece of art on the second page, so I decided to take a photo of the picture instead and incorporate that in the layout.

BUT, I definitely wanted to save the original, so I've attached it to the back using some photo corners so you can remove it if you want. This way the layout and the picture stay together.

Thursday, April 23, 2015

I was really excited to be able to pull out my new Die-namics Quilt Square Cover-up for this one.

I used it on all four of this week's colors. The great thing about that is that I could essentially create four cards by mixing and matching the colors if I wanted to.

Anyway, I opted to split my quilt design top and bottom, using the outline to help me line things up. For a little extra interest/dimension, I popped up the larger pieces. The sentiment is from Miss Tiina's I Love You More set.

Originally this was going to be my card, but then I started playing around with some more pieces, and the outline cut, and decided to kick it up a notch for my 'official' card.

Here's a little sneak.

Head over to the blog to check it out and see what the rest of the team created.

Hi! I'm excited to be guest designing for Virginia Lu's Challenge today. The challenge this month is layers and dimension, which is right up my alley.

I thought I would pull out some new goodies I haven't had a chance to use for this card.

I'm using Papretrey Ink's Quilted: Spring stamps and dies. For this card I wanted to put a modern/elegant spin on the quilt.

For the bottom panel, I adhered a piece of chevron vellum to some Grout Gray cardstock and then stitched them together with gold thread before adhering the entire piece to the card base.

The quilt die was cut from both vellum and gold metallic cardstock. I stamped and embossed the quilt image on the vellum, ran it through my Xyron machine and then adhered it to the gold die cut piece to soften the color. This was adhered to the card with foam tape.

After stamping/embossing the center negative cut piece with the sentiment, I popped that up on three layers of foam tape and adhered it to the card. To add one more layer of dimension, the corner negative cuts were adhered just beneath the main die cut image to the card base.

I love the intricate feel from all the layers and the complexity that it adds to a card that looks relatively CAS. All told, not including the card base, there are six layers on this card.

Thursday, April 16, 2015

My Favorite Things is hosting a week focused on shaker cards. If you have checked it out yet, you definitely want to head over to the blog because there are all sorts of prizes to be won.

Today the focus is shaker cards using word dies and I thought I would get in on the action.

I used the Happy Die-namics die, adding a small sentiment just above it. Then I adhered a piece of acetate that was trimmed to cover just the word. Foam tape was added along the top and bottom of the sentiment as well as along the edges of the outside letters to create my sequin pocket.

Once the sequins were in and the compartment sealed up with another piece of acetate, I added more foam tape to the entire panel to secure it to the card base.

For some extra definition and interest I added a couple thin strips of red metallic cardstock.

I thought about dressing it up a bit more, but decided to stay CAS.

Be sure to head over to the MFT blog to enter the giveaways this week and check out all the great tips and tricks that are being shared there.

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

I recently picked up the Home Sweet Home set, I love these sweet houses, and knew I wanted to piece one.

All the papers you see are from Amy Tangerine's Ready Set Go 6x6 pad. The house paper is a bit busier than I would normally use, but it was just so perfect for the card, so I went with a bolder background and more subtle neutrals on the pieced house.

I wanted to achieve an art journaling type look, so I added some doodles around the edges.

The sentiment was stamped twice to make sure it was dark enough to see clearly.

Several of the elements are also popped up for some extra dimension.

So fun, right? I'm looking forward to doing some more stamping with these houses!

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

I must confess that I have sorely neglected my Silhouette the last several months, so I was excited to dust it off and pull it out to create some cards.

We were able to select several files to use for this week's collaboration. I really love background cut files, and one of the great things about the Cut Shoppe is that you get the backgrounds in both 12" x 12" and 8 1/2" x 11" formats. The 8 1/2" x 11" is perfect to create card backgrounds.

I've got carried away and ended up with three projects to share today.

This first card features the Geometric Graffiti background. I cut the background, and then leaving it intact on the cutting mat stamped the Origami Map image. I then used ink blenders to apply a rainbow of colors to the design.

The map image was then stamped onto a card base. Then I started removing the die cut triangles and adhering them to the card base by lining up the stamped images.

The sentiment was embossed on a black strip of cardstock and popped up over some bits of vellum and punchinella.

My second card uses the Hip2BSquare background. Again I used the 8 1/2" x 11" version shrinking it down to A2 size. Once it was cut, I removed the cut from the sheet leaving the negative pieces intact.

I used my detail scissors to snip out a frame/opening within the die cut. I placed the altered die cut over my cardstock panel and lightly traced around the opening with a pencil. Then I removed the die cut piece and stamped around the opening with the large solid flower image from Paper Cut Flowers using several colors of ink. I also stamped a sentiment from Paper Cut Flowers.

The die cut piece was then adhered to the stamped panel. For some extra interest, I removed some of the negative cuts and colored them using the ink pads I used for the stamping and then placed them into the die cut background.My last card is very CAS. The focus is the Hope Anchors stamp and Arrows with Attitude Background die cut. I simple die cut the background and just tacked it down a bit on the card base.

The sentiment was embossed on some vellum and the then stitched to the card base/die cut. I didn't actually use any adhesive on the vellum as I wanted it to kind of float over the die cut piece.

A few Crystal Clear sequins finished it off.

OK, you definitely want to head over to the Neat & Tangled and Cut Shoppe blogs. There are prizes to be won, all you need to do is leave comments on both blogs all week, so make sure you check in each day.

Monday, April 13, 2015

Hey everyone! Hope you had a great weekend. Ours was packed, visit to the pool (indoors), playing outside, buying a new/used car for the hubby, library, skating classes......oh and a little crafting too.

This card was actually created a while ago, but I haven't managed to post it until now.

It features the Script embossing folder from We R Memory Keepers. Before embossing my cardstock, I used a brayer and white pigment ink on the inside of the folder to create that great two toned effect.

The clouds are Paper Smooches. For the solid clouds I adhered two layers of vellum together to make them a bit more opaque. This also helps the adhesive to show less. The sequins are older, from Lawn Fawn, and the sentiment is from my Clouds set at Neat & Tangled.

Friday, April 10, 2015

I'm going to finish this week off with a layout, to prove that I am making real, albeit stunningly slow, progress on our vacation photos (from LAST YEAR).

I sometimes like to do complementary two page layouts: where the photos/design are discrete, but they share a theme or style.

I actually finished these pages a week or so ago for the online crop that Paper Issues had. The challenge was to use stitching on a layout. I sketched in those waves and then used two colors of floss to stitch across.

I also used some strips of paper to tie the pages together and of course the themes are similar.

I hope that you have a great end to the week and have some fun things planned for the weekend!

About Me

I'm married to Andrew. We have two daughters, Ellie and Carina, and a beagle named Oshie. I love scrapbooking, stamping, making cards, playing hockey, reading books, and hanging out with family and friends. Thanks for coming by and spending part of your day with me.